Backstory to this post you might want to skip…
I’m currently dusting off this newsletter. 😀 I got the swift kick in the pants I needed to get back into gear with writing. I thought it was going to be rough going to get back into the writing routine, but it’s been surprisingly easy. Maybe the break I took was enough to get rid of the burnout I was under.
I made some adjustments to my routine that look like they will work. One, I am now going to type my stories with my eyes closed (most of the time anyway) to ease the symptoms of dry eye. Two, a couple of wonderful ladies offered to help me clean up my writing as I go along in the story, so I don’t have to strain my eyes on the editing side of things. (I always used an editor, but these ladies are helping me as I write the first draft, and that will make things easier for my editor in the long run. I can’t edit with my eyes closed, so these ladies are really helping me out, and I appreciate it more than they will ever know.) Three, I have cut back my word count goals for my writing days. Instead of aiming for 3,000 words, I am now doing 1,500 words. That is 750 words per story. I also went from writing three stories to writing two at a time. I believe these changes will help me avoid burnout in the future.
Now for the content that matters…
The Earl’s Jilted Bride (Marriage by Obligation: Book 3) is now out!
Below are the books in the Marriage by Obligation Series.
I don’t know if I’ll write more than these books in this series. There’s a possibility one might pop up, but I have to write more of Anyone But You to figure it out.
Here is my unofficial description of this book:
Anyway, The Earl’s Jilted Bride is available. It features a hero whose first wife had an affair that resulted in a child. He is raising the girl as if she was his own, and he never tells anyone the truth of the girl’s conception so the girl never has to face scandal. In his need to give the girl a mother, he marries the heroine of this story.
He thinks it’ll be easy to set aside his feelings of betrayal from his first marriage, but past events are going to haunt him during the course of this story. Meanwhile, the heroine feels like a wallflower, so she seeks out the help of a duchess to teach her how to be desirable to the hero. The heroine doesn’t tell the hero this, and, as you’d expect, this only adds to his doubts.
If this sounds like your cup of tea, here is where you can find this book:
Google Play (ebook)
Google Play (digitally narrated audiobook)
*I am getting it set up as a digitally narrated audiobook on Apple, but that may take a couple of weeks to go live.
Worth the Risk (Marriage by Obligation Series: Book 4) is in edits
I would love to have this one out in May. *fingers crossed*
This is Reuben’s story. He is Corin St. George (Lord Durrant)’s younger brother in If It Takes a Scandal. (At that time, he was still a kid.)
Reuben is now grown up and wants to find a wife. (Can you believe that much time passed since If It Takes a Scandal?)
Anyway, Reuben was sickly back then, and he’s still sickly now. I did bring him in when I wrote Secret Admirer (Book 1 in the Marriage by Obligation Series) and The Earl’s Jilted Bride (Book 3 of same series), but this is where we get his romance. Things are going well with Amelia when Corin comes in and puts a stop to the courtship by talking Reuben into leaving London to do what’s best for Amelia. Reuben believes Amelia will be better off with a gentleman who is in better health, so he does leave for her sake. But Amelia disagrees, and that is how we get the plot of Worth the Risk. 😀
I am currently on Chapter 6 in Anyone But You
This is Book 5 in the Marriage by Obligation Series. I am hoping to have this out later this year, probably around October or so.
I am really happy with the progress of this book. Felix Hamilton (Lord Roland from Midnight Wedding) has asked for Lady Elizabeth’s hand in marriage to make things right, and her guardian has agreed. Felix is sweating bullets at the wedding ceremony. Elizabeth is angry with him for ruining her reputation. And Guy (Lord Quinton) has given the two doves to hold for good luck. The scene doesn’t go in Felix’s favor, taking the new marriage into a worse turn than it already was. At the moment, Elizabeth refuses to go to dinner, and Felix is fighting the urge to drink in order to appease his nerves. Oscar, however, has no trouble eating dinner, but then, very little bothers him. The other characters in this book are adding a really nice layer to the story. I’m sure they will somehow be instrumental in helping Felix and Elizabeth find their way to each other.
I am in Chapter 9 of Tagalong Bride
This is Book 1 of the Love Under Desert Skies Series. I am hoping to get this out in August or September. It depends on how quickly I can write the book.
I thought it’d be fun to go somewhere “new” in my historical westerns, and I figured Arizona would be a lot of fun. This is a “fish out of water” type of story. The hero and heroine are from a wealthy community in Pennsylvania. They have no idea what they’re in for when they go to Arizona to rescue the hero’s sister who has been kidnapped by a group of bandits. I haven’t figured out which secondary characters will have their own romance in this series. I am just learning who these characters are. I will figure that out as the story progresses.
The hero and heroine, however, are the basis for the story, which they are in romances. I love these two characters. The hero is secretly bankrupt and pretends to be in love with the heroine so she’ll marry him. The heroine is head over heels in love with him and believes he does love her. Now, don’t get the wrong idea. The hero isn’t cold toward her. He does care about her. He just isn’t romantically drawn to her. If he started out that way in the book, I’d have no plot. I am excited to find out how he develops a real and lasting love with her.
I joined two BookFunnel Promos this month.
The first is the March Historical Romance.
I see that most of these books are Regencies, but I had a reader ask for me to put up The Outlaw’s Bride and The Rancher’s Bride. (These are Books 1 and 2 in the Wyoming Series.) It looks like The Rancher’s Bride (Book 2) didn’t get added, so I will look to do that in a future promo on BookFunnel.
This is the link to the Historical Romance Giveaway that will take place from March 1-March 31.
But this one does include The Outlaw’s Bride (Book 1). This is a nitty gritty kind of western series. In case you haven’t read it yet, The Outlaw’s Bride is about a mail-order bride whose stagecoach gets stopped by a group of outlaws who want to rescue her from her intended, because her intended isn’t the honorable man he pretends to be.
The second is the Historical Romance giveaway.
Again, this one looks heavy in Regencies. I am finding it difficult to find a BookFunnel Promo that has steamy historical westerns. It seems like most of these are geared toward Regency readers. I might have to run a promo myself to be a better fit for what most of the people joining these particular promos are looking for.
Here is the link for the second March Historical Romance on BookFunnel I joined. The book I added to this one is Eye of the Beholder.
I had someone contact me wanting a mail-order bride romance in the old west, so I decided to put in Eye of the Beholder because it’s my favorite one, and I think she will enjoy it.
In case you haven’t read this one yet, it’s about a homely woman who answers a mail-order bride ad. But upon arriving in Nebraska, the man takes one look at her and rejects her. There is another man nearby who overhears them and offers her his name instead. She agrees, not believing the union will lead to love. Love, after all, is only for beautiful women.
***
That’s it for this month! Thanks to everyone who didn’t give up on me. I am happy to say my burnout is gone, and I’m excited to get back to writing in full force again. 😀
Ruth Ann Nordin's Monthly Newsletter 